


Payphone

by wonker8



Category: Avengers Movie-verse
Genre: Breakup, M/M, Not A Fix-It, aaaaannnnnngggggssssstttttt!!!!!!, fairytale, relationships fall apart too easily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-02
Updated: 2012-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-11 23:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonker8/pseuds/wonker8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There used to be a payphone in the corner of 15th Avenue Street."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Payphone

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for [Avengerskink Prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/6021.html?thread=9710469#t9710469):  
>  _If happy ever after did exist  
>  I would still be holding you like this  
> All those fairytales are full of shit  
> One more stupid love song I'll be sick._

Once upon a time, a young boy looked up to the stars and made a wish.

“Please stop making daddy hurt us. Please give us happiness.”

The first wish came true in the form of a car crash. The second one, however, never did.  
*  
“Hey Coulson,” Barton called out to his handler in the crowded cafeteria. “I finished my report!”

The agent raised a cool brow and made his way to sit next to his asset. “You sure took your time,” he commented. He held up his hand. “Well?”

“I finished it, but I don’t have it on me.”

Coulson stood to leave but Barton quickly grabbed his arm. “C’mon, man! It’s not like you’re going to burst into flames if you eat lunch with me. Eat. I’ll make sure to turn in my report.”

There was doubt in the agent’s eyes, but he sat back down. Barton would like to believe that that was the beginning.  
*  
The orphanage wasn’t the happiest moment of the boy’s life. But he learned valuable lessons there. He learned to stop asking for wishes. He learned that none of those came true anyways. He learned to stand up for himself, no matter how beaten he got. He learned to fight dirty, and to always hide his wounds because those were signs of weakness. And weakness was the last thing he wanted the world to see.  
*  
“Barton, shouldn’t you be reporting to medical?” Coulson asked when he found his asset in his office couch, examining his arrows.

“Nah,” Barton answered with an easy smile. “I got this.”

“You’re bleeding all over my couch,” Coulson pointed out. “And your hand looks like you need to set a bone or two straight.”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Barton said. He thumbed his arrows, ignoring the worried glances Coulson was shooting him. “I’m perfectly healthy. I don’t need any medical help.”

Coulson let out a heavy sigh. Then he walked over to his filing cabinet where he pulled out a first aid kit. He put it in front of Barton. “Do you need me to help you or can you figure it out yourself?”

Barton just grinned in answer.  
*  
The boy’s favorite stories were those from fairytales. He loved listening to the happy endings. He loved the clichés and loved that the good always triumphed over evil. Even when the story wasn’t about good and evil, he loved the morals behind each stories and he loved that everyone got what they deserved. But those were just that. Stories.

He learned very quickly that real life was nothing like fairytales.  
*  
Barton stared dumbfounded at the sight before him. “Huh,” he muttered to himself softly. “So this could happen.”

Coulson was yelling over the comm, demanding to know what was going on. Barton just laughed. Or at least he tried to. Blood fell from his mouth, choking his laughter. Well, now he knew why the Black Widow was considered the most dangerous person to be taken out. He grinned at the woman in front of him, who was looking at him with uncertain eyes.

“Nice shot,” he told her, blood dripping from his mouth. “But you missed my vitals, you know.”

She snorted softly. “It’s so you can die slow,” she told him in a thick Russian accent.

Barton just laughed, and Coulson continued to yell.  
*  
When he first fell in love, he realized very quickly why he couldn’t stay. He was a Carnie. He travelled with the circus (he had ran away from the orphanage with his brother a while back), and he couldn’t afford to stay at a town with the so-called love of his life. Those kinds of things didn’t exist.

Just like fairytales didn’t.  
*  
“You’re a sniper!” Coulson snapped. “Why did you abandon your post to engage the Black Widow? You compromised the entire mission! You-” _Could have died. Could have left me forever in the world. Left me with nothing to look forward to._

“Hey Phil, I think I’m in love with you.”

There was a slight pause as those words filtered into Coulson’s brains and he ended up gaping at Barton. His face felt red hot and there was no way this could be real, but he couldn’t get his mouth to work. It opened and closed, but no sound came out.

Barton just smiled brightly at him. And Coulson knew that they would never be the same again.  
*  
Both of them knew that it wouldn’t last. It was just the way things were. There was no way that the two of them could continue to be in love, not when there was the world to save, SHIELD missions to accomplish, and Black Widow who seemed to have gotten a taste for following the two around the world and trying to ruin their missions.

But it was nice at times to fall into bed together (if they made it there). It was nice to wake up to a warm body by one’s side. It was nice to see a smile for the sake of smiling, not because someone wanted something. It was just nice to have someone who always had one’s back.

The boy (now a man) knew it wouldn’t last. It never did, anyways.  
*  
“What do you mean, you don’t want to anymore?” Clint asked staring at Phil in disbelief.

“I mean exactly that, Clint.” Coulson looked at him with calm eyes. “We can’t continue to do this. We’re liable to compromise, and that’s the last thing we need at SHIELD right now.” Now that Ironman was established, now that a giant ranging green monster was running around the world, now that Captain America’s frozen body was found. There were too many variables to get caught up in.

“What about when now is over?”

Coulson looked away. “Don’t do this, Barton.”

Barton threw his hands up in the air and screamed, “Fine! Well fuck you! It’s not like I was actually in love with you anyways!”  
*  
His favorite fairytale was that of Sleeping Beauty. She fell asleep for a long time and when she awoke, it was to the kiss of the love of her life. It was a beautiful story that would never work in real life. Because people who fell asleep didn’t wake up that easily. At least not when they slept as long as Sleeping Beauty did.

And no one ever awoke to being kissed by someone they loved. Life just didn’t work that way.  
*  
There was blood dripping from Coulson’s chest, and he couldn’t help but to smile thinly. Ah. So this was his end. He always imagined that he would go down with Barton by his side, fighting to the bitter end. But he supposed that tie was severed when he called everything off. When Barton went off to become the best sniper SHIELD had to offer, when Barton convinced the Black Widow to stop sabotaging SHIELD and to join them instead, when Barton’s smile became the only thing that made Coulson’s life worth living.

Because Coulson was the one who called everything off.

And Clint was kind like that. He stayed away, pretended that nothing ever happened. He wasn’t polite, he wasn’t kind. He was just Clint Barton. An asshole to the core, a snarky bastard who made fun of Coulson over the comm with no remorse. As if what they had between them didn’t mean much. As if friendship was just as easy to fake as relationship.

Coulson was rather thankful for that. It made being a handler easier. It made being in love with Clint Barton easier.

Well, not that it mattered much now.  
*  
Just as fairytales didn’t exist, neither did happy endings. There was no such thing as finding your one true love. There was no such thing as everlasting happiness in a relationship. There was no such thing as being together forever, because you love each other. There was no such thing.  
*  
Clint stood in front of Coulson’s office door, just as he used to do once long ago, when Coulson was still alive. His hands lingered at the doorknob, hesitating whether to go in or not. Did he have the right to? They had burnt down that bridge before. There was nothing that connected the two of them anymore. Not now that Phil was dead, and Clint had no right to be here, when he should, by all rights, be a labeled traitor and kicked out of the team.

He rested his forehead against the door. “You can’t expect me to be fine,” he whispered to the door. “I don’t expect you to care. But damn it, Coulson, I’ve wasted so many of my nights, stuck in that time. But even the sun sets in paradise…”

A soft laugh left his mouth. “I used to stand at a payphone, waiting for you to answer my calls. All of my change, I spent on you. Where have the times gone? This is all wrong, babe. I meant to be by your side, you know. I wanted to be your true love. If ‘Happy Ever After’ did exist, I would still hold you like I did. All those fairytales are full of shit. One more fucking love song, I’ll be sick.”

Stormy gray eyes closed tightly as hot tears seared their way down his cheeks. “I’ll be sick,” he repeated to himself. “I’m sorry, Phil.”  
*  
There used to be a payphone in the corner of 15th Avenue Street.

Sometimes, the boy would crawl in there and pick up the phone as if he had someplace urgent to call. But he had no money, so he would just stand there with his ear on the receiver, waiting. He pretended that he was a spy, waiting for a new mission to come through the lines. He pretended that this was a call he was making to Heaven, where he could hear his mother’s voice come through. He pretended that this was a call that could link him to his future self, whose life was probably better than this.

Years later, he would stand at the spot where the payphone used to be. He would pick up the imaginary receiver and put it against his ears. He would put in the money that he now had to spend, and he would wait for the dial to go through, to reach him to the one person that he knew would never be able to hear him, imaginary phone or not.

He waited for the call to link him to Phil Coulson.


End file.
